


Of Mouse and Avengers

by wolfiefics



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Domestic Avengers, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Humor, MRBB2020, Magic, Marvel Reverse Big Bang 2020, based loosely on Mouse Hunt, totally ridiculous
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:55:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27810355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolfiefics/pseuds/wolfiefics
Summary: When a mix of Dr. Strange and Loki's magic goes bad, Loki decides mischief can still be managed in form he's stuck in. Cue ridiculousness, outrageousness, and domestic Avengers collectively losing their minds
Comments: 8
Kudos: 22
Collections: Marvel Reverse Big Bang 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Wolfesdrache's art was too adorable to pass up for the Marvel Reverse Big Bang 2020. Amusingly, she and I had the same thought in mind. If you haven't seen the 1997 movie Mouse Hunt with Nathan Lane and Lee Evans (and cameo with Christopher Walken!), I suggest you find this somewhere IMMEDIATELY. Your education is sadly lacking.
> 
> I want to thank both Wolfsdrache and AuroraWest for the fantastic cheering and beta-reading. They did their best to reign me in. GO TEAM LOKI MOUSE!

When you are bored, sometimes you have to find something to occupy your time: read a book, draw some art, watch a movie you’ve missed out on or maybe an old favorite, or take up a new hobby. Cross-stitch? Macrame? When you are Loki, Trickster of Asgard, boredom means you need to get up to a little bit of mischief.

Just a little!

Rumor said that the Avengers, after kicking Loki and his Chitauri army’s butts in New York, had settled into disgusting domesticity. The self-righteous Captain America found some long-lost war buddy, who had been a brain-washed assassin for decades. That insufferable Tony Stark (Iron Man, bah!) turned his monstrosity of corporate greed into the Avengers’ headquarters and everyone was there, living nicety-nice in perfect harmony.

Standing on the sidewalk across from the Avengers new home, dressed in an impeccable, bespoke suit of a nice green with gold accents, Loki sneered at the upper stories where those do-gooders supposedly communed with each other. How did that song go? Kumbaya?

Thor was off-world, fighting some incursion to the Outer Realms, and as he was the only real threat, Loki decided to take a tour of this “new and improved Avengers Tower”. He casually meandered the block the Tower inhabited, trying to find a weak point and came up empty. Eventually a large truck backed up to a large loading bay at the rear of the building and a driver got out to open the truck’s back end.

“Delivery for Mr. Stark from the Wakandan Embassy,” said the truck driver through an intercom by the bay doors. Loki cloaked himself invisible and came closer to hear more. “Yes, sir,” the driver was saying, “the vibranium King T’Chaka offered is here.” There was speech Loki couldn’t quite pick up but the driver held up something from his pocket to a camera and then the loading door opened.

Loki grinned. Perfect. He stepped forward but an alarm sounded and he backpedaled. The alarm stopped. He heard that mechanical nitwit who ran Stark’s home and suit say, “I detected a sudden heat spike in a concentrated area, Sir, but it is no longer there.”

Stark’s voice, tinny and distant, came through. “Keep an eye on it, JARVIS.”

Frustrated, Loki watched as men and machines off-loaded large pallets of metal bars, five in all. The men were chatting casually with the driver, completely unaware of Loki hovering just beyond JARVIS’ detection.

Something skittered behind him and Loki whirled in alarm. In the garbage strewn about the area, rustling in the discarded newspapers, emerged a tiny rodent, little nose twitching and feet scurrying. Loki looked thoughtfully at the mouse and then back to the open door of the loading bay.

If JARVIS was looking for a large heat signature, would he notice a tiny little mouse?

With concentrated effort, the lanky form of Loki Laufeyson shrunk and transformed into a diminutive grey mouse. He scurried toward the huge door, which was starting to close and made it inside without setting off an alarm or getting his long, hairless tail caught at the last second.

He was in! Let the mischief begin!

**INTERLUDE THE FIRST: THREE WEEKS EARLIER**

“You want to do _what_ to my Tower?” Tony Stark asked Dr. Stephen Strange, aghast.

Strange rolled his eyes in a long-suffering manner. “Just some simple booby-traps. It won’t do anything to your precious technology, Stark.”

Steve Rogers piped up from the other side of the common room where he was flipping through a magazine. “Sounds like a good idea. Can’t be too careful. We’re pretty much setting ourselves up as targets here, you know, Tony.”

Tony mumbled something like ‘fairy tale mumbo jumbo’, threw his hands up in the air in disgusted surrender, and exclaimed, “Fine! Turn any intruders into donkeys or eggplants if they step foot on the property without permission!”

Strange laughed, a rare occurrence for him. “Nothing quite so drastic,” he said. “Just some precautionary spells. You won’t even know they’re there until they go off.”

“Magic,” snorted Tony, giving a dismissive wave as he headed for his lab to work on designs for the new suit.

**RETURNING BACK TO LOKI NOW**

Once inside Loki made his way unobserved out of the warehouse area of Avengers Tower and into the main lower employee offices for Stark Industries. He considered the clothing of the staff, casual, comfortable, but still a tad formal, and envisioned himself in like clothing. He expected to grow, heighten and fill out into a human shape once more.

It didn’t happen.

He frowned and concentrated again on the image of himself as a Stark employee.

Still nothing.

Irritated, Loki did something he should have done to begin with: check for magic spells on the Tower. What he found horrified him.

With little mousey paws clenched in rage, he squeaked, “Straaaaange!”

A man and woman walking by paused at the noise, the woman saying, “Did you hear that?” The man shook his head and they moved further down the carpeted corridor.

That thrice-damned human sorcerer had booby-trapped the building! Loki tried every trick in every book he’d ever pored over in the Asgardian library and was still a freaking mouse when he finished.

Angry, thwarted, and a bit humiliated, Loki gave a loud squeak of irritation. Someone was going to pay for this, starting with the idiots who lived here. He was here to do some mischief. Fine. He could do it as a mouse just as well as in his human form.

When some clueless soul entered a stairwell, Loki snuck in before the door shut behind her and began the irritatingly laborious climb up…and up…and up.

Oh yes. Someone was going to pay for this.


	2. Chapter 2

Pepper Potts worked hard for her money. Tony’s too. She prided herself on maintaining the trust placed in her with SI’s new direction of moving beyond weapons to other, more useful but still profitable products. When Obadiah Stane mentioned baby bottles, he wasn’t entirely far off. Tony’s latest invention of self-heating baby bottles was winning Stark Industries big points with all sorts of healthcare, child care and welfare communities worldwide.

That said, Pepper also enjoyed a nice sleep-in on a Saturday morning. She was up bright and early all week with grueling personal and business schedules. Friday nights were reserved for some charity gala, a dinner Tony drug her to, or who knew what else. Saturday morning was Pepper’s time to recharge and catch up on some well-earned rest.

Her internal clock told her it wasn’t time for her to wake up but something kept scratching at her nose. She mumbled at Tony to stop and tried to fall back into the nice dream of Clark Gable giving her a back rub but that scratchy sensation persisted. In a huff, she opened her eyes to bright sunlight streaming in the huge window and a mouse perched on her chest.

Pepper also prided herself on being unflappable. Tony, over the years, had put her through the emotional, and sometimes physical, wringer so she was inured to pretty much anything. Except for a mouse sitting on her chest, looking like it was going to climb up and nibble on her nose again.

Something you might _not_ know about Virginia “Pepper” Potts was that she _hated_ mice. With their twitchy noses, disgusting hairless tails, irritating squeaky noises, and the little rice-size poop they left _everywhere_. Vile!

Pepper screamed. She didn’t dare move. What if the mouse bit her for real? Didn’t they carry rabies? Or bubonic plague? She screamed again, more hysterical this time. She’d seen documentaries on the Black Death, with the descriptions of the tumors that spread over the bodies of the infected and how quickly the afflicted succumbed and died. If she remembered correctly, there was no cure for plague. Was there a vaccine? She needed to get Tony working on one if not.

The mouse was unperturbed. It reached out a paw and gave her chin a scratch.

Pepper screamed again, closing her eyes so she wouldn’t have to see the abominable animal bite her and send her into an excruciating death.

When Tony appeared, huffing and puffing, with Nat right behind him, Pepper was a panic-stricken mess. “I’m going to St. Thomas,” she informed Tony in a very un-Pepper-like panicky tone. The mouse was gone, of course, by the time help arrived. She was now throwing clothes haphazardly into a small suitcase. If she packed the wrong things, fine. She’d buy what she needed. She was the girlfriend/near fiancée of a billionaire. He could afford to buy her a new, tropical wardrobe while he de-vermined his damned Tower.

“Why?” Tony was perplexed. “It’s a mouse, Pep. A couple glue traps and, in a day or two, problem solved.”

Pepper didn’t pause in her erratic packing. “Then you can call and tell me, with photographic proof, that it’s dead. I’ll call my assistant and cancel my meetings. Get rid of it! Hire an exterminator, buy every kind of trap known to man, build your own, I don’t care. It’s me or it.” With that parting shot, the unperturbable Pepper Potts was out the door, in the elevator, to the car, and demanding that Happy take her to the private hangar so that the Stark plane could take her away from homes that have infestations.

* * *

Tony watched, flabbergasted, as Pepper departed in a flurry of a combination of packed sweaters, shorts, track suits, high heels and her favorite ruby bracelet. He turned to look at Nat, who just shrugged.

“I’d start mouse hunting,” Nat told him lazily as she walked away from a flabbergasted Tony. “Otherwise, you aren’t getting laid until it’s dead. I think Pepper was serious. Clint and I are headed for Madagascar to take down that cartel trading in Chitauri weapons. Good luck!”

“Um, JARVIS?” Tony called out to his house assistant/AI butler after Nat abandoned him. “How do you get rid of mice?”

“I have taken the liberty of ordering various rodent catching devices from the local hardware store, including humane ones so that you won’t have to listen to Dr. Banner complain about animal cruelty. I have sent two assistants to pick up the items. They should return shortly.”

Tony sighed with relief. JARVIS thought of everything. He gave an arrogant grin. Of course JARVIS did! The artificial intelligence was created by a genius, billionaire, playboy philanthropist. Pepper probably just needs a vacation, Tony consoled himself. She’s been working too hard. Some time away will do her some good.

The traps arrived and Tony boggled at the sheer number of varieties: old-fashioned wooden snap traps, electronic ones that electrocuted the mouse instantly, fancy plastic snap traps, enclosed snap traps so that you don’t see a disturbing little dead mouse body, catch and release traps that were basically just little cages that closed once the mouse entered, sonic repellers that looked a bit dodgy, and the rather sticky and very disgusting glue traps. The latter gave Tony gory visions of a mouse dismembering itself to escape.

He set out all of them strategically about he and Pepper’s floor, baited with what Google told Tony was the most expensive cheese in the world. He sent Happy to a little Eastern European shop for the pule cheese. His reasoning was if the mouse was going to die horribly, it might as well have a tantalizing whiff of the finer things in life. With the humane traps, the cheese would be a nice meal before the mouse was released back onto the mean streets of New York City.

Satisfied he’d done all he could reasonably do, Tony tried to go back to his lab. Instead, with Pepper gone, he found that _he_ was now the one that everyone came to for decisions. Endless meetings, the meaningless, paranoid babble of investors, and irate CEOs who were upset that they were talking to him and not Pepper now occupied Tony’s time. Worse, the damned mouse hadn’t taken the bait. _Any_ of the bait.

By the following weekend, with the Tower empty of other Avengers and Tony blissfully released from the onerous duties of running his company, he headed for his lab and the siren song of welding together the new jet boot conduits to the leg portions of the new Iron Man suit. Just before Pepper’s screams of panicked terror, he’d installed the painstakingly-created vibranium wiring in the boots and he was eager to get everything together for a quick test run.

The doors swished open and the smell of oil, grease, solder, metal, and stale coffee made Tony sigh with relief.

“This is a _much_ better use of my time,” he muttered to DUM-E, who careened over with a gloopy green shake of some sort. He downed the surprisingly tasty mess, took his screw driver in hand, and pried up the casings to the boots to do a once-over before full installation.

There was no wire. There weren’t even the wire casings. Some of the titanium alloy section pieces had a distinctly gnawed look. Tony stared, not truly comprehending what he was seeing, then he looked around in panic.

“JARVIS!” he shouted.

“Sir?”

“Who’s been in the lab? They stripped the wires out,” Tony demanded.

“No one has been in the lab, Sir. I detect no entrance via the door since you were last here,” came JARVIS’ calm reply.

“That was _vibranium_!” he screamed in outrage. “The most expensive damned metal on the planet! I owe the King of Wakanda my first-born child, my left arm, and my house in Malibu for that vibranium! What happened to it?” Tony swiped the air, automatically bringing up his holo-screens. “I want the security camera footage in this room from the last 24 hours,” he ordered with gritted teeth.

Two hours into the viewing, Tony’s mouth dropped open in astonishment. “No.” It couldn’t be. But sure enough, there, on the screen, a tiny little mouse scampered onto the table and disappeared into the boots’ casing. Fifteen minutes later the mouse appeared again, looking a tad fatter, and gave its little face a wash before scurrying off-camera once more.

 **“It ate the damned vibranium wire?”** Tony screamed in incoherent rage. “Fuck the damned humane traps,” he snarled. “That mouse is going to find out just what a genius, billionaire, playboy philanthropist is made of when you mess with his damned suit!”

A flurry of blue print paper and the scratching of frantic drawing was proceeded by JARVIS’ laconic, “Oh, dear.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am aware it is very unlikely Tony would actually be able to get pule cheese like that. This donkey milk cheese from Serbia is rare as can be and probably wouldn’t be wandering around some small Mom-and-Pop shop. But go with the imagery, okay? LOL!


	3. Chapter 3

Natasha Romanov didn’t show exhaustion. Natasha Romanov didn’t show weakness. She was a survivor of the infamous Red Room. With that established, she _did_ appreciate the finer things in life when they were necessary: a nice caviar while playing some warlord’s arm candy, the expensive wine that Pepper gave Nat as a ‘welcome to Avengers Tower’ gift, or a good, sturdy Kevlar suit that repelled most bullets.

When Steve Rogers, aka Captain America, burst into her life, Nat was a bit skeptical about the man. True, he’d been a war hero, but from a war over 60 years ago. Yes, he was stalwart and determined, but he was out-of-date and clueless about the modern world. He did indeed walk around like there was a steel bar attached to his spine. She came to realize that was because he was also uncertain of his place and was trying to be what everyone thought he should be. It took awhile but finally, Steve relaxed enough around her when they worked together at S.H.I.E.L.D. that Nat eventually saw Steve as any other man, just with better manners.

She started dragging Steve out to various restaurants after missions, meetings, or training sessions. Steve had been wary about sushi, fell in love with five-alarm chili, and learned to make his own tabbouleh from scratch. The two relaxed into an easy friendship. One thing Nat didn’t understand about Steve was his love for apple pies. It was so stereotypically American. The man ate them constantly. He complained about store bought tasting ‘wrong’ but would eat them anyway. Nat never cared much about apple pies until they came off a long, brutal mission followed by an equally irritating debrief.

Steve took her to a local diner near the Triskelion, sent her to find a table in the crowded place (surprising for three in the morning), and came back with a tray holding two coffees and two slices of apple pie with whipped cream on top. Nat had suppressed a moue of disgust at the sweet treat but obligingly ate a bite.

No _wonder_ Christian mythology stated it was an apple that the Devil used to corrupt Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. She ignored Steve’s knowing smirk as she ate the entire slice and then went for another. After that, they made it their personal ‘Steve and Nat’ mission to find the best apple pies anywhere they went.

They hit the jackpot when Nat idly wondered one day if Russians had an apple pie of some sort. To her astonishment and delight, they did. A _sharlotka_ , a mix of a cake and pie made of apples, was a popular Russian dessert. She found a Russian pastry shop that sold them and bought her and Steve one each. The _sharlotka_ became their go-to dessert after a crappy day.

So, when Nat and Clint returned from busting enough heads in Madagascar to emphasize that trading in Chitauri weapons was a bad idea, Nat was pleased to find the familiar box from she and Steve’s favorite Russian bakery sitting on her kitchen island counter. A bright orange sticky note on it read: _I hope this makes up for the mission. Me and Buck are looking at the fall leaves. See you this weekend. Love Steve._

Sniffing back sentimental feelings, Nat eagerly flipped open the lid, fork in hand, intending to eat the entire damned pie in one sitting. And stared. The box was empty, except for a few little crumbs and what looked like mouse droppings.

Nat had a hard week. She just wanted her apple pie and some _rodent_ ate the entire thing! She let out a scream of outrage, that prompted JARVIS to inquire as to its source.

“A mouse, JARVIS!” she ground out. “It ate my pie!”

There was a near-guilty silence from the AI. “I will inform Sir that the mouse has also been in your rooms. He will wish to add them to his location detection systems, if that is all right with you?”

Not really comprehending JARVIS’ words, Nat gave waved her hand dismissively. “Whatever.” Fuming, Nat stomped into the elevator that opened directly onto her floor and punched the button for Clint’s. She needed sympathy and she was going to get it.

The elevator doors swished opened and Nat informed the room at large, “Some effing mouse _ate my pie_.”

Clint exited his kitchen, a perplexed look on his face. “What?”

“A rodent of some sort ate my pie!” Nat repeated in growing outrage. “Steve bought me that pie because he knew it was a hard mission. Those pies are special!” Her voice rose as she spoke.

Clint drew her to the couch and spoke soothingly. “It’s okay, Nat. Here, I just got pizza delivered. Maroni’s. You like Maroni’s. Who doesn’t? Lots of cheese and I got it loaded with the works.” He got her sat and gave her a consoling pat on the head. “Queue up a movie, make it Disney, maybe _Emperor’s New Groove_? I’ll dish up some pizza, grab beers, and we’ll relax. You and Steve can go for pie later.”

Somewhat mollified, Nat did as she was told. She grabbed the remote and clicked on the TV. She surfed to the movie setup that Stark installed on their televisions. She bounced through categories until she found Disney and queued up _The_ _Emperor’s New Groove_. Clint hadn’t emerged from the kitchen so Nat got up to see if he needed help.

Clint was staring dumbfoundedly into the pizza box. It didn’t take a genius, billionaire, playboy philanthropist to figure out what had Clint stumped. “Ate the pizza?” she asked dead-pan.

Clint looked up, blue eyes glazed. “This is a super large with jumbo slices,” he said stupidly. “It was delivered like ten minutes before you showed up.”

“Ate the whole thing?” Nat was starting to get riled again.

Clint’s face turned red. “IT ATE MY DAMNED PIZZA IN LESS THAN FIFTEEN MINUTES!” he shouted in total outrage.

Nat peered in. “Left you a slice,” she noted. “But I wouldn’t eat it. There’s mouse droppings on it.”

Clint slammed the box lid closed, shrieking, “JARVIS! Tell Stark that his Tower is _infested_!”

“He is aware, Agent Barton, Agent Romanov,” JARVIS advised in his usual unflappable tone that hinted at a bit of snark. “Ms. Potts has fled the premises. The mouse consumed the vibranium wiring in Sir’s new suit. It also has evaded all traps that Sir has purchased. He is currently building ‘a better mouse trap’.”

Clint snorted. “No engineer is going to catch a mouse, especially _this_ mouse.”

Nat narrowed her eyes. “It ate my pie, your pizza, and vibranium wires? This isn’t an ordinary mouse.”

“I’ll bet it’ll get eaten by an ordinary cat, though!” growled Clint. “Come on, let’s give some cats a new home. There’s a shelter down the street. We’ll wipe them out of cats.”

Nat paused a moment, reconsidering. “Clint—" she began but he turned on her.

“It ate your pie,” he reminded her. “It ruined pizza and Disney.”

Clint was right. The rodent was doomed. “We want one named Catzilla,” she said. “Let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those interested, [here’s a recipe for sharlotka](https://www.curiouscuisiniere.com/sharlotka-russian-apple-cake/). Looks pretty good, actually!  
>   
> For those following along, Catzilla was the cat, um, defeated, in the movie Mouse Hunt, which is pretty much the inspiration for this entire fic.


	4. Chapter 4

Bucky Barnes had to admit, sometimes Steve’s harebrained ideas had merit. He’d cut off his other arm before admitting it out loud, however. When Steve said “Let’s go upstate and look at the leaves. Play tourist, Buck!” Bucky thought Steve was bonkers. All that clean air and wholesome country charm? Couldn’t be healthy.

After several days of picking apples that they consumed and a pumpkin that Bucky intended to carve for the hell of it, the two time-displaced super soldiers also indulged in rambling drives through winding two lane roads. The wonderful array of fall colors was pleasing and Bucky’s phone was jam-packed with photos. One of the farms they stopped at for fruit picking had a hay ride on a cart pulled by an old tractor. Bucky adamantly insisted the corn maze was rigged and that his method of getting through a maze was sound, he did not get them lost, _Rogers_.

A week at little bed and breakfasts or cheap roadside motels had both Bucky and Steve ready for the near-hedonistic beds that Stark provided everyone when they moved into Avengers Tower. The time away from the city was nice, Bucky decided, but New York City was the place to be. Nothing compared. The constant honking of car horns, the bitter smell of fuel or exhaust, the rumbling of people’s overly loud stereos, the street hawkers or performers, the deep horns of boats along the river and in the bay, and the stink of garbage and unwashed masses…ah, home sweet home.

Neither realized something was wrong as they made their way from the parking garage, suitcases in hand, until they reached the front lobby. Steve had to let security know they were back. Some contraption was underway in the huge lobby of the Tower, wires hanging haphazardly from it. To Bucky’s way of thinking, it looked like some bizarre rollercoaster gone mad.

When Steve rejoined him, Bucky pointed to it. “What do you think that is?” he asked.

Steve eyed the setup critically. “Not sure I want to know, with Tony,” he finally shrugged. “Come on, let’s put our suitcases up and see what everyone’s doing. Maybe we can talk them into Chinese for dinner tonight.”

Game for Moo Shu Pork anytime, Bucky agreed. They tossed their suitcases on the bed and went looking for the other Avengers currently in residence. JARVIS cryptically only told them where everyone was. They found Clint, Nat, and Tony each holding scruffy-looking cats and shouting over each other, which only aggravated the mostly feral-looking cats.

“What’s going on?” Steve interrupted the verbal wrangling, pointing at the corridor lined with various traps and the cats in hands.

“We have a mutant mouse,” reported Nat.

“I think he got into some of Steve’s super serum Wheaties,” Clint added pugnaciously.

Both Brooklynites blinked. Bucky looked about incredulously. “All this for a measly mouse?” Three mutinous glares came back to him. “Steve had a pet rat when he was kid in the tenements. What’s the big deal? A bit of cheese, a trap, some patience, end of story.”

Tony’s eyes rolled wildly, making Steve and Bucky take a precautionary step back. “It ate _vibranium_ , Barnes!” the man known to the world as Iron Man ground out.

“This is not an ordinary mouse,” Nat repeated sternly. “It ate my entire pie, Steve. The whole thing!” Bucky had never heard the Black Widow sound anything but calm but her tone had an edge of hysteria to it.

“It ate an entire super large every topping Marconi pizza!” added Clint with a snarl that was matched by the brute of a cat in his arms.

“Except the piece it pooped on,” Nat reminded him. Clint went purple in the face at the thought.

Steve and Bucky traded glances that clearly said “let’s get out of here’. “Okay,” Steve said soothingly. “You guys do what you need to do. We’re going to … um…”

Bucky didn’t bother with words. He just beat a hasty retreat, dodging a cat fight that was nothing but flying fur and a tail or leg sticking out occasionally. They reached the elevator and Steve punched their floor with a bit more force than needed.

“All this for a mouse.” Steve shook his head. “People in the 21st century are weird, Buck.”

“I’m pretty sure the cat in Nat’s arms had a name tag that read ‘Catzilla’,” Bucky noted. “Isn’t that a play on the name Godzilla? You know, that giant irradiated lizard monster that trashes Tokyo?”

Steve perked up. “I’ll order Chinese, you load up a Godzilla movie. Oh! We haven’t seen the new King Kong movie yet. I’ve heard it’s pretty good!”

**INTERLUDE THE SECOND WHILE SUPERSOLDIERS WATCH _KONG: SKULL ISLAND_**

Loki was sprawled out in the deep innards of a wall on some random floor, belly up and legs splayed. He let out a rather impressive belch for a small creature.

“I think that pizza was a bit much,” he mused to himself. “I need something healthier, some greens maybe.”

He thought and then remembered that there was a garden on the roof of this monstrosity of a building. Just the ticket. Some fiber and healthy greens might help him get rid of this indigestion. It would be nice to be outside for a while too. The smell of cats and that horrid bait cheese was starting to get to him.

Thus resolved, he rolled back to his four paws and scurried away.

**BACK TO OUR SCHEDULED ‘THE NEXT MORNING’**

Bucky stretched and rolled over to bury his nose in the nape of Steve’s neck but he was alone in bed. The idiot probably went for an early morning run. Sighing and grumbling to himself, Bucky crawled out of bed and stumbled to the bathroom before heading for the coffee pot. It was blissfully mostly full, so he filled a cup and sipped the ambrosia of life. As he finished his coffee, he ruminated on the thought that the character of James Conrad in that Kong movie kind of looked like Loki. Weird.

Deciding that since Steve was out being athletic, Bucky would use the time to check on his garden on the roof. He still had a few beets, carrots, cabbages, radishes left over, plus he wanted to see if his squash was still good or if the altitude of the building ruined them. While they watched the movie last night, Bucky had carved his pumpkin into the typical grotesque grin of a jack-o’-lantern. He debated whether or not to save the seeds to plant for next year or roast them up for a snack later today as he rinsed his coffee mug and got dressed.

The elevator to the roof didn’t actually go to the roof but to a small stairwell that was a bitch to maneuver when your hands were full of planting soil bags. Bucky bounced up the steps and didn’t realize that the door to the outside was already open until he ran smack into Steve’s back.

“Oof!” Bucky grunted when he hit rock-solid supersoldier. “Steve! Move it!” He gave a light shove to Steve’s shoulders. “I want to see how the squash is doing.”

“There is no squash,” Steve managed to strangle out.

Bucky’s heart sank. “Dang it. I was afraid of that. The altitude might—"

“There is nothing left of the garden, Buck,” Steve said, stepping outside and turned so that Bucky could peer out.

Bucky blinked and stepped past Steve, lower jaw hanging open in shock. It looked like his garden had been hit by locusts. There was nothing green, leafy, or…well, edible left. Even the remaining root vegetables were dug up, clumps of dirt flung everywhere on the neat brick paths between sections. He turned with an anguished inquiring look at his partner, who solemnly pointed at the ground.

Bucky obligingly turned to look. There, trailing to an outside air vent, were a _lot_ of mouse droppings.

In a fury, Bucky whirled back to Steve and ground out, “Stark’s using the wrong bait. You order traps. I’ll Google what the best bait for mice are. This little asshole is going _down_.”

“Even Peachy didn’t eat this much,” Steve lamented, looking out at the decimated garden. “Bucky, it even denuded the lemon tree.”

Bucky turned back to the garden once more, his vision in slow motion. His lemon tree that Banner bought him and that Bucky babied and managed to coax one lone, very nasty tasting lemon from was indeed nothing but a brown upright log.

Steve’s vocabulary in swear words, already previously impressive, grew proportionately that morning in multiple languages.


	5. Chapter 5

Bruce Banner was tired but elated as he stepped out of the taxi that brought him from the airport. Through careful communication, he and several old colleagues got reacquainted and it was suggested they meet for a couple of weeks on a sabbatical. Bruce recommended a S.H.I.E.L.D. retreat cabin he’d used before as it would offer protection for everyone in case something went Hulk-wrong. It took a bit of wheedling to get Fury to agree but agree the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. did.

The conversations were stimulating and ideas flowed between Bruce and his four friends. They didn’t just talk science, of course, but that was the bulk of the conversations. It left Bruce feeling inspired and he was eager to talk to Tony about some of the things discussed. He also wanted to bury himself in the state-of-the-art lab Tony built him and start concocting.

He had trouble wrestling his suitcase and briefcase plus laptop bag through the revolving doors of Avengers Tower so he missed the frantic waving of warning from the front desk security. He cleared the door, took a deep breath, and then cocked his head.

Where was that rumbling coming from?

He looked up and ducked in time to not get his head bashed in as what distinctly looked like a boulder on a wire-guide swooped overhead. Bruce moved several steps to the side to view the monstrosity.

“Ah-ha!” came the not-too-sane sounding shout of someone on the other side of the room

Bruce squinted and Tony came into view. Well, Bruce _thought_ it was Tony. He’d seen Tony in various states of “oblivious to all but his current project”, but he was also certain that shirt had more holes than a slice of Swiss cheese and Tony had the look of someone who hadn’t seen soap or shampoo in quite some time.

“Tony?” Bruce inquired. “What’s going on?”

“He’s Hitler with a tail. He’s _The Omen_ with whiskers. Even _Nostradamus_ didn’t see him coming!” Tony was raving.

Bruce cast a wary look at the security desk guard, who just whirled his finger by his ear in the universal ‘he’s crazy’ gesture.

“Who’s Hitler?” Bruce asked.

Tony leaned in and Bruce tried not to breathe through his nose. Tony really needed a bath. “The super mouse.”

“Super mouse?”

Tony nodded emphatically and wandered back to his contraption.

“Okay, well, as you were, I suppose,” Bruce said and headed for the elevator. Once inside he asked JARVIS, “What’s going on?”

“I would say you would get more coherent answers from Agents Romanov or Barton, or perhaps Captain Rogers or Sergeant Barnes, but you won’t,” JARVIS told him bluntly.

“Please tell me at least they’ve had baths?” Bruce ventured.

“Yes. I can say that.”

Bruce breathed a sigh of relief. “Okay, take me to the others.”

The elevator stopped and Bruce disembarked, leaving his luggage inside. The corridor JARVIS brought him to was lined with mouse traps of all types about every six inches along the hall. Bucky was emerging from a closet, admonishing Steve, “Buy more marshmallows tonight. We’re going to run out.”

Bruce just turned around and went back inside the waiting elevator car. “Maybe Nat and Clint,” he decided out loud. JARVIS gave a disturbingly expressive snort of derision but obliged.

The doors opened on a new floor and three cats tumbled inside, hissing and spitting at each other.

“Catzilla!” Nat scolded, appearing like magic and scooping up a notch-eared, vicious looking feline. “Mouse, not cat. You need to hunt the mouse.”

“Natasha,” Bruce began but was interrupted by swearing further down the corridor. Bruce peered out and saw Clint with a screwdriver prying open the wall panels.

“Stark made the damned tower human-proof but not mouse-proof,” the archer was ranting. Cats milled about Clint even as he tugged on the paneling.

“Nat, what’s going on?” Bruce tried again.

She gave him a critical look. “If I were you, I’d hole up somewhere. This mouse is not normal. It’s a mutant or something supernatural. We don’t need you going Hulk.” She leaned in and advised ominously, “Hide.”

Bruce punched the button frantically for the elevator door to close. “JARVIS, my rooms and then I’ll go to my labs.”

“Wise, sir.” JARVIS’ tone wasn’t comforting.

**INTERLUDE THE THIRD: LOKI DEVISES A NEW STRATEGY**

Loki just barely managed to squeeze through the hole he’d chewed and looked about. He needed to stop eating things, first of all. He was getting fat and he was fairly certain that lemon tree was rancid. No more eating things to cause mischief, tasty though it sometimes was. He needed to branch out. He was the God of Mischief, after all, not some one-trick pony.

He emerged into a room he’d never seen before and looked about. Legs moved around a table where something truly vile-smelling was coming from. Must be someone’s lab.

Perfect.

**RETURNING TO BRUCE AND HIS RELAXING LAB**

Bruce tipped one more drop of the pink sludge into the beaker, which made the liquid inside sputter and smoke. He felt like a mad scientist and grinned. It was an apt description. He scribbled notes in his journal and then texted a picture of the chemical diagram and the smoking beaker to his colleagues, announcing that it looked like their theory was plausible.

He read through the flurry of returning suggestions on tweaking a different batch and scribbled those down as well. He typed in a label into the computer and hit ‘print’. The label churned out on the printer across the room and he collected it, along with a rubber stopper for the still smoking beaker.

He settled back in his high-backed stool and looked down at the beaker. The applications for this formula were endless. He would have to pitch it to Tony and Pepper. He was so preoccupied with his success it took a moment for his eyes to relay what they were seeing to his brain.

A mouse.

How cute.

Wait.

What?

Yes, a little gray mouse, sniffing around the beakers and vials. Bruce froze. Visions of the maniac actions of his Avenger friends swam before his eyes and their seeming nonsensical words rang in his ears. “Hitler mouse.” “Super mouse.” “Mutant mouse.” The creature looked up at Bruce with what he swore was a calculating look. He didn’t dare move. If this was some unnatural rodent, he didn’t need to be a radioactive Hulk Mouse. What he was already was bad enough.

The mouse all but pranced over to his experiment. Bruce whimpered in disbelief as the mouse seemed to give him an unholy smile, put little mousey paws on the vial, and begin to push it towards the edge. The little beady eyes never broke contact with Bruce’s horrified gaze.

Torn about what to do, Bruce was paralyzed. The beaker moved slowly to the edge of the lab table.

Until…

**CUT AWAY**

Tony in the main lobby, Steve and Bucky in the fifteenth-floor laundry room for the janitors, Clint with his head stuck up inside a ceiling on the 32nd floor, and Nat using a Widow’s Bite stunner on Catzilla who was still hunting other cats instead of the damned mouse looked up at the sound of a thunderous explosion and the unmistakable roar of the Hulk.

Clint’s shout was broadcast to everyone by JARVIS: “Bruce found it!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tony's description of Loki Mouse is Nathan Lane's character, Ernie Schmuntz, in _Mouse Hunt_ 's description of the mouse in their inherited house.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to Wolfsdrache for the lovely art! Thank you again to AuroraWest for the great beta! And A BIG THANK YOU to the moderators of the Marvel Reverse Big Bang for 2020! I highly recommending clicking on the collection and perusing the fabulous fics and the art that inspired them.
> 
> Everyone have a safe holiday season, whatever you celebrate. In this age of COVID, wear a mask! (Mine is Baby Yoda!)

Thor liked to make a flashy entrance sometimes when he came to Midgard. The area called Central Park wasn’t too far from Avengers Tower so he usually ‘landed’ there. After the dust and grass cleared, the hulking Asgardian warrior stepped from the runic circle indentation left in the ground to see a few people eagerly taking pictures. A couple approached for him to make a signature on paper. Midgardians were an odd lot, but it hurt no one to sign his name a few times and pose for pictures.

Saying farewells, he easily made his way through the crowded thoroughfares to the place that was home away from home, Avengers Tower. Steven had been correct that the building was an eye-sore, but it was where his new friends lived and where Stark had given Thor a home while on Midgard.

He sailed through the amusing spinning door and stopped short. The lobby was a disaster. The security guard was not at his post at the desk. Wire and metal hung from the ceiling and a giant hole in the far wall with what looked like a shattered rock was scattered about the floor. Alarmed, Thor made his way to the elevators, only to find them sputtering open and closed in a random pattern. Sometimes they sparked at the panel where you selected a floor.

Thor gripped Mjolnir tightly in his grip and, with deep concentration, his armor rose and wrapped about him, red cape fluttering heroically in the non-existent breeze. Thus geared for battle, Thor headed for the stairs.

The stairwells seemed intact and at every door to a new floor, Thor poked his head out to see if anyone was hurt and needed help. Everything was empty, eerily so. Thankful that he was a god and that stairs weren’t much of a hardship no matter how many there were, Thor continued to climb. As he rose, some floors had battle damage: strange contraptions with little white things that he swore were called marshmallows on them, arrows sticking out of the ceiling tiles, walls torn open with the insulation stuffing strewn about, and small beasts he was certain were called hamsters roaming around. They were making awful caterwauling sounds. The hamsters seemed unharmed so Thor continued on.

The damage per floor became worse as he went up. Hamsters were everywhere, as well as traps. The floor with Banner’s lab was completely wrecked, water from the overhead sprinkler systems still gushing, pools of water collecting here and there. Whoever attacked the Tower set off Banner to become the Hulk. This was serious.

“JARVIS!” Thor called finally.

“Yes, Mister Thor?” came JARVIS’ completely unconcerned voice.

“What has happened here?” he demanded. “Why was I not informed an invasion of the Tower occurred?”

JARVIS’ tone was as bleak as Svartalfheim’s landscape. “I wouldn’t call it an ‘invasion’, sir.”

Thor was perplexed. It certainly looked as if a fierce battle had taken place, floor by floor in some instances. Had someone infiltrated JARVIS? Could Thor trust Tony’s artificial intelligence?

“Where is everyone?” he asked with trepidation.

“Try the main common room, Sir,” came the unperturbed answer.

Convinced now that JARVIS had been corrupted, Thor made his way to the upper story floor that Tony designated their ‘common room’ for get-togethers of fine foods, conversation, and entertainments. This floor looked as damaged as all the rest and Thor readied Mjolnir to administer, as Bucky was wont to say, “a butt-whooping”. He entered the main common area and looked about the destruction for any sign of his friends.

The couch and coffee table were obliterated and in the sunken area was a heap of humans. Thor could not distinguish who was what and where in the pile but precariously on top of what might have been Steven was Steven’s patriotic shield.

And on the shield was a little gray rodent, studiously washing its face.

Thor’s brows drew together and he lowered Mjolnir. “Loooookiiiiiii,” he drew out the name in warning.

The small beast looked up at him and gave a distinctively innocent, “Who, me?” look.

From somewhere in the pile of Avengers, Natasha’s irate voice shrieked, “I told you there was something supernatural about that mouse!”

FIN


End file.
